British GP: Alonso, extraordinary pole at Silverstone ahead of Webber

Fernando Alonso achieved the best time at the British GP with a masterpiece Q3. The Ferrari Spaniard, with a time of 1'51”746, obtained pole position at Silverstone, after having risked elimination in Q2 due to a storm which led to the suspension of testing for over an hour.

The Ferrari driver preceded Mark Webber with the Red Bull by half a tenth, author of a splendid qualifying in his turn, while behind them the excellent form of Michael Schumacher was confirmed, who brought his Mercedes to the second row ahead of another Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel. Felipe Massa with the other Ferrari is fifth and precedes the disappointed ones of the day: Kimi Raikkonen, Pastor Maldonado and above all Lewis Hamilton, who tried to compete with the leading duo without succeeding. Nico Hulkenberg's ninth place with Force India closes Q3, in which Romain Grosjean did not take part, having gone off the track with his Lotus at the end of Q2.

Q1 begins with the rain starting to fall heavily on the Silverstone track and all the drivers take to the asphalt with intermediate tires to make time before the track floods. The race direction informs that the DRS is disabled for safety reasons. The start is frantic, with Paul Di Resta going onto the grass and a near fratricidal contact between Raikkonen and Grosjean. There is a succession of leaders in the lead, but the track, however, seems to be improving lap after lap, because the cars take care of drying it out: six minutes from the end the Saubers take to the track with the Soft dry tyres, but it is a false hope and Kobayashi recovers immediately the Intermediates. The climate is changeable and in fact after three minutes the rain starts falling again. In these conditions, those who are doing worse are the McLarens, with Button risking elimination being 18th while Hamilton in turn is 14th and cannot be considered calm: so, in the final, he mounts a new set of Intermediates. If the black driver maintains his position, Button is very unlucky: right on the finish line Timo Glock's Marussia spins, the McLaren standard-bearer arrives with good partial times but is forced to slow down with the yellow flags. The home favorite is the excellent first eliminated: Q1 is dominated by Sebastian Vettel who laps in 1'46”279 and precedes Nico Hulkenberg and Pastor Maldonado. In addition to Button, who finished 1"7 behind Vettel, Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen of Caterham, Timo Glock of Marussia, the two HRTs of Pedro De La Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan and the other Marussia of Charles Pic were eliminated, but he is not in the 107% and therefore his presence on the grid tomorrow will be at the discretion of the commissioners.

Q2 starts in the same way as Q1, with a mid-August queue at the exit of the pit lane. Alonso and Massa risk the Intermediates but the rain is pouring and the Ferraris put on the Full-Wet extreme wet tires immediately after one lap. The conditions are difficult, the cars raise clouds of water on a track that has returned to yesterday's situation. And in fact it was Vergne and Schumacher who paid the price, who ended up spinning at the entrance to the Maggotts curve. But Schumi is unable to stay on the road, like Alonso who loudly asks for the red flag to be displayed: Hamilton also comes close to having an accident with Perez, and Massa ends up spinning, risking hitting Alonso who was passing by. Finally it was decided to stop Qualifying 6"19" from the end of Q2: the right decision even if it was late and above all penalizing for Ferrari who paid for the decision to go out with the Intermediates. The ranking currently sees Perez in the lead, followed by Hamilton and Rosberg: those at risk of elimination are Grosjean, Schumacher, Massa, Alonso and Maldonado. The Ferrari Spaniard is forced to change his helmet, but the forecast is not good: the bad weather will last for at least 50 minutes, according to forecasts. In the meantime, the Safety Car is running around the track, with the English public very sportily applauding and cheering like in a football stadium: there are 80 thousand fans in the stands, packed despite the truly inclement weather. Finally the rain stopped and at 16,07pm Italian time the pit lane reopened: we start again, with Maldonado leading the line of drivers taking to the track. Everyone has Rains, except Raikkonen who rides Intermediates, like Kobayashi.

Silverstone is flooded anyway, the cars have difficulty controlling as soon as you push on the gas: Grosjean struggles to keep his Lotus on the asphalt, while Kobayashi overtakes the Full Wets. Grosjean despite everything gets the best time, followed by Alonso who is three hundredths behind him. Rosberg ends up on the grass, while Schumi takes the lead, immediately overtaken by Webber. Massa is third, now the risk is Hamilton who is tenth: the Englishman with a super lap of 1'54”897 takes first place and the checkered flag. Alonso is 13th, he is having good split times but Grosjean's exit into the gravel slows him down: despite everything the Spaniard takes the ninth place finish albeit 1"9 behind Hamilton and qualifies for Q3. In addition to the Ferrari driver, Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Schumacher, Webber, Grosjean, Massa, Raikkonen, Maldonado and Vettel will be in Q3; Paul Di Resta with Force India, Kamui Kobayashi with Sauber, Nico Rosberg with Mercedes, Daniel Ricciardo with Toro Rosso, Bruno Senna with Williams, Jean-Eric Vergne with Toro Rosso and Sergio Perez's Sauber are eliminated, who didn't need the magic trick of trying the Intermediate card to move up positions.

The emotions were continuous and Q3 appears more electrifying than ever. Grosjean is forced not to participate in the final qualifications due to his withdrawal; Maldonado chooses to ride the Intermediates, while the others remain on the Full Wet. The only one at risk of punctured tyres, besides the Venezuelan, is Vettel. The move of the German from Red Bull was immediately imitated by both Webber and the Ferraris. Hamilton also changes his mind and uses the same tires as his rivals: the rain has stopped and the track is apparently drying out. Massa achieved the best performance in 1'55”617, but was immediately beaten by Schumacher and above all by an amazing Alonso, who clocked 1'53”699. Vettel seems to be in difficulty with the Intermediates but grabs third place behind Schumi, who however mounts the Rains. Massa improved Alonso's time and took the lead again, with the Spaniard one second quicker. Webber climbs to second position, but the Brazilian from Cavallino fights and regains the front row. The fight is beautiful: while Schumi mounts the Intermediates, the Australian from Red Bull clocks 1'51”793, it's a war to lower the times with the Red Bull drivers, with Alonso setting a fantastic time and beating Webber by 46 thousandths. Pole therefore goes to the Asturian, ahead of the Australian and a reborn Schumi who with the new tires beats Vettel. For Ferrari it is an exceptional feat, after the great fear of Q2: it is the 21st pole of the Spaniard's career, the 205th for Ferrari. It's a big party in the Cavavllino garage: all that remains to be said is that Kobayashi, Pic and Hulkenberg will be penalized by five positions and Vergne by ten on tomorrow's starting grid.

Lorena Bianchi

These are the Qualifying times:

Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m51.746s 2. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m51.793s + 0.047 3. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m52.020s + 0.274 4. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m52.199s + 0.453 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m53.065s + 1.319 6. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m53.290s + 1.544 7. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m53.539s + 1.793 8. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m53.543s + 1.797 9. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m54.382s + 2.636 10. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault Q2 time limit: 1m56.931s Gap ** 11. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m57.009s + 2.112 12. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m57.071s + 2.174 13. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m57.108s + 2.211 14. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m57.132s + 2.235 15. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m57.426s + 2.529 16. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m57.719s + 2.822 17. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m57.895s + 2.998 Q1 time limit: 1m47.105s Gap * 18. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m48.044s + 1.765 19. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m49.027s + 2.748 20. Heikki Kova lainen Caterham-Renault 1m49.477s + 3.198 21. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m51.618s + 5.339 22. Pedro de la Rosa Hrt-Cosworth 1m52.742s + 6.463 23. Narain Karthikeyan Hrt-Cosworth 1m53.040s + 6.761 24. Marussia-Cosworth 1m54.143s + 7.864 107%: 1m53.718s